If you knew the sort of vitriolic abuse Gardeners' World gets from the public when it appoints a new presenter you would revise your opinion of gardeners as predominantly gentle characters and start locking your doors when driving past allotments.

Thankfully most of the criticism is innocuous stuff: the nation's "head gardener" is too inexperienced or too middle class, not old enough or not tall enough, too fat, too thin, that sort of thing. It's a no-win situation for the BBC. Monty Don had dissenters from both press and public for his entire tenure even though he built a legion of fans: now Toby Buckland is in the firing line, even though he appears to be well suited to the role.

When the search for a new presenter began, I sensed the various producers take a collective sharp intake of breath, because they knew that they could mess things up very badly indeed if they took the wrong decision. The future of this very British institution was in their hands and the institution was big and unwieldy and their hands were small and a bit sweaty. One false move and Gardeners' World would join Geoff and Percy forever on the compost heap in the sky.

In order to protect it, everyone around the programme - researchers, producers and presenters alike - constantly wraps the whole thing in a cosy blanket of feel good cotton wooliness. A day's filming at Berryfields last year left me feeling as if I'd been stroked by a velvet glove. But someone, somewhere in the BBC has surely got great big cohones because before Toby has even got his muddy boots firmly under the table, they have decided to unwrap the blanket of loveliness and dangle GW over the balcony like Michael Jackson showing off one of his offspring. Berryfields has been deserted for a redundant playing field in central Birmingham. Berryfields may not have been the crown jewels of the programme and was in any case only rented short term, but surely no-one in their right mind would decide to start from scratch in an empty playing field?

The spin is that Berryfields' several acres and Grade 1 listed manor house were irrelevant to most viewers, but it was hardly a stately home and actually quite tiny compared to how it looked on the telly. Everything always looks much bigger on TV but I was still amazed by its compactness when I went there. Apparently an old football pitch in the middle of a city has allowed Toby to design small spaces and make his own garden from scratch. But if they want to show us how to rejuvenate an overgrown shrub or divide crowded perennials or harvest some veg they've got to leave the football pitch and go somewhere else – at least for the time being - which seems a little odd. And with Alan or Geoff or Monty wasn't part of the magic not knowing quite where the house was or working out where one bit of the garden was in relation to the other? There isn't a house here at all and it isn't really a garden - it's a football pitch.

I decided to make a scientific study in my office. We all stood round my computer watching a video trailer for this 'Field of Dreams': there was some funky music and Toby rallying the nation's horticultural troops. Someone said: "My mum will hate it". We all agreed that our mums would hate it. In the interests of scientific accuracy I later asked my Mum and she confirmed that she would indeed hate it, but also confirmed that she would continue to watch it religiously. I know that this evening she will be shouting at the telly. I also know that six months from now she will be singing the praises of "that nice Tony Buckley and his lovely garden".